


Personal Sun

by Stina0098



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Happy Ending, Jaemin being a chaotic evil, M/M, Mutual Pining, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, haechan wearing hoodies for personal reasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 16:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21211778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stina0098/pseuds/Stina0098
Summary: Mark is 6 when he realizes that the words written on his arm in cursive letters are a bit different from most.





	Personal Sun

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think i've written a story this long in such a short period of time in...ever?? which?? what is markhyuck doing to me and where is this inspiration when i'm writing essays? a mystery, i tell you.

Mark is six-years-old and out grocery shopping with his mom when it happens for the first time. He is standing beside her as she examines which tomatoes look the ripest, humming a song as he sways on the balls of his feet, when a man in his fifties walks up to him. The man is holding on to a large cart, and Mark is standing in the middle of the aisle, not noticing him until he utters a soft “excuse me”.

Mark looks up and, despite the man smiling as he patiently waits for Mark to move aside, promptly bursts into tears.

A few seconds later his mother is patting his back soothingly, a concerned frown marring her face. The man scurries away hurriedly and Mark cries even harder.

“Mark, what happened?” His mother asks worriedly, not understanding his sudden tears, and it takes him another minute until he’s calmed down enough to explain that the man had said the words written on his wrist. That his soulmate, his missing piece, the one person he was destined to be with, is apparently old enough to be his grandfather.

She lets out a long breath, understanding dawning on her face, and for the first time Mark comes to understand that the words written on his arm in cursive letters are a bit different from most.

When he grows up it becomes even clearer.

While generic words like ’can I have a large coffee’ on one’s shoulder or a ’nice to meet you’ on the thigh aren’t uncommon, Mark is thirteen when he abandons all hope of ever identifying his soulmate after having three people say ’excuse me’ to him in one single afternoon.

His best friend Jeno, who has the words ’Holy smoke, you’re not Jisung’ on his calf and has never had to worry about simply walking past his soulmate, had seen the way Mark had wilted, previous easy laughs disappearing, and tries his best to cheer him up.

“I’m sure none of them were your soulmate,” Jeno says. “Unless the universe is crazy and has decided that your soulmate is either a soccer-mom or already in a happy relationship.”

Mark bites his lips, and while he usually tries not to talk about his words, tries to listen to his mother’s words about not worrying too much about something beyond his control, anxiety is slowly beginning to curl in his stomach.

“What if I’ve already met my soulmate,” Mark says, and while he tries to say it casually, there is a part of him that is terrified of it being true. “Or I say something generic back, like okay or something, and we never meet again.”

Jeno’s mouth sets into a worried line.

“Just make sure you say something crazy back,” he finally says, and things are quiet between the two of them for a minute until Jeno rekindles their conversation.

“At least you have a soulmate,” he adds, and while Mark hates that he was born with words that will lead him nowhere, he knows that Jeno is right.

There had been a girl in his calculus class who’d had words that were smudged, born with a soulmate that was already dead, and as far as Mark knows, he isn’t one of the rare few born with a soulmate that had another person’s words on their skin either—destined to be in love with someone who would never want them back.

“Yeah,” he says, and tries to smile, but develops a habit of always wearing headphones out in public despite his words, drowning out the world around him with music loud enough that he can barely hear his own thoughts. It’s a desperate attempt to ignore the problem, and Mark knows it is, but it at least makes him avoid listening to quite as many people excusing themselves in front of him.

It isn’t until they’re in uni, Jeno bursting into their shared dorm room with an excited look on his face, that Mark knows that he won’t be able to pretend like nothing is wrong forever.

“I signed up for my dance class today and apparently there are two Jisungs in my year alone.” Jeno says, gazing at him with barely concealed excitement. “I have a feeling that one of them will be the Jisung my soulmate talks about. I think this is the year I will finally meet them.”

Mark blinks, in the middle of picking out a t-shirt, and tries his best to digest the sudden announcement.

Mark knows that they are nearing the age where people usually meet their soulmates, but for some reason he hadn’t expected Jeno to meet his soulmate so soon and isn’t sure how to react.

He is over the moon that Jeno is finally getting around to meeting the person he is destined to be with, because anyone with Jeno as their soulmate has to have saved a country in a previous life, but there is also a part of him that realises that with every one of his friends finding their soulmates, the higher the chances are that he won’t.  
  
He responds before Jeno’s excited smile can fade, never wanting to take the excitement away from him.

“That’s so amazing,” He finally says, meaning it, and feels a genuine smile form on his face. “I didn’t think the name Jisung was that popular.”

“Me neither,” Jeno says, and the small smile on his face lets Mark know that he’s already half in love with the person who would mention him.

Jeno continues to talk about his soulmate as they get ready for the party Mark’s cousin had invited them both to, snacking on the chips Jeno had bought from their local supermarket instead of eating a proper dinner.

It isn’t their first ever university party, but it is the first one since the start of the new school year, and for all Mark had planned on being a social butterfly when he’d enrolled, the truth was that he had been too busy with schoolwork and extra-curricular activities the previous year to even attend any of the larger student parties. He’d only gone to a few that he had literally been dragged to by Johnny, or by one of the friends Mark had made in class.

Johnny tells them to meet him outside of the school cafeteria, apparently doubtful of Mark’s ability to make it around campus without somehow endangering himself, and Mark is struck by how much he finds that he’s missed the older when Johnny waves him over with a smile on his face. The feeling lasts for a few seconds until Johnny opens his mouth and Mark is reminded why he always walked away from meetings with his cousin swearing to never meet him again.

“Aww! You changed your hair! It doesn’t look like ramen is sprouting from your head anymore!”

Johnny makes a move as to ruffle his hair and Mark, who had spent fifteen minutes carefully styling it, only manages to duck away a second before irreparable damage would have occurred, accidentally letting out a high-pitched yelp.

“It never looked like ramen,” Mark sulks, thinking of the time he had spent with hair bleached beyond repair. “It turned out exactly the way I wanted it to,” he lies.

Johnny chuckles, and Mark thinks it’s a small miracle that Johnny has friends who even deem him worthy to invite to parties and hopes that Jonny won’t introduce him to his friends as ’the kid he babysits’ like he did in high school.

The party is on the outskirts of the campus in some large fraternity house that Mark wonders if the school allows students to use however they want, and Johnny disappears instantly after arriving, loudly proclaiming that he’s going to fetch drinks.

There are a lot more people at the party than Mark had imagined, and when Jeno says that he needs to go to the bathroom and disappears too, Mark somehow ends up heading in the direction of the kitchen –hoping to at least look like he has some sort of purpose for being there. When he gets to the kitchen he doesn’t know what to do though, and so he just stands by the entrance awkwardly, unsure if he should go in.

A boy with grey hair accidentally bumps into him, trying to exit the kitchen whose entrance Mark finds he is accidentally blocking, and utters a soft “excuse me” that Mark thinks is more automatic than anything else because the person doesn’t even look up, focused on not spilling the drinks he is carrying. Mark shuffles away, wondering where Johnny is, but doesn’t have to wonder for longer than a minute or two before an arm is slung around his shoulder and a red cup is shoved into his hands.

“There you are!” Johnny exclaims happily, and from the smiles and greetings he receives from the other people in the room, he obviously knows the majority of the people there. “I want to introduce you to my friends!”

Mark is dragged out of the kitchen and into a large living room where Johnny steers him towards a group of people who seem to be the life of the party.

“Guys!” Johnny calls out, the large grin on his face looking ominously bright.

Among the people who look their way Mark recognizes the person he had accidentally bumped into in the kitchen, and while Mark hadn’t been able to see his face before, he is surprised to find that the boy is startlingly good-looking with kohl-lined eyes and sun-kissed skin. He makes Mark think of summer, of hot days under the sun, a quiet sort of confidence to him that is too genuine to be anything other than real.

Mark realises that he is staring when Johnny makes a noise next to him and snaps him out of it.

“Donghyuck, Jaemin, this is my cousin Mark!” Johnny exclaims happily. “He used to have hair like ramen, but now he is so handsome!”

Mark doesn’t understand how he hadn’t noticed how obviously tipsy Johnny had been even when they’d met up outside of the cafeteria, the obvious flush on his cheeks letting him know that Johnny had probably had something to drink before even arriving at the party.

Mark flushes, ears turning red as he meets Donghyuck’s eyes and curses the fact that Johnny is his relative and someone he will have to deal with for as long as he’s alive.

“It never looked like ramen,” Mark repeats again, hoping to save some face. “It was just a hair-dye experiment gone wrong.”

Donghyuck’s entire body freezes, eyes widening as he looks at Mark with an expression that Mark finds difficult to place. For a few long seconds Donghyuck just stares at him, a million different emotions crossing his face, before he finally breaks into a smile so brilliant that Mark feels himself stuttering for no other reason than being on the receiving end of it.

Donghyuck looks at him like he’s rain after a draught, like Mark had just told him that he had won the lottery, and even when Donghyuck responds his eyes never once leave Mark’s face, soaking in every detail of his face.

“Well, I’ve had hair the colour of ketchup so at least we would have matched.”

Donghyuck’s voice sounds a little bit unsteady, a bit breathy, and Mark blinks, saved from having to answer by Johnny who seems to find Donghyuck’s comment hilarious.

“I’d totally forgotten about that!” He laughs. “You two would have looked like a walking McDonalds advertisement together! Yellow and red!”

Mark wonders if his aunt will notice if her son suddenly goes missing, and thinks it is a small blessing that Johnny hadn’t seen him during the time Jeno had convinced him that he’d look good with a bowl cut.

Mark tries to find something else to say to salvage the situation while Donghyuck still looks at him with an odd intensity. Mark gets the brief impression that he’s waiting for him to say or do something, but he isn’t sure what that is and so he ends up just laughing awkwardly like he always does when he doesn’t know what to do.

Johnny seems oblivious to the strange tension brewing between them, tugging at his arm again.

“Come on, I see Jungwoo and Sicheng!”

Something inside Mark twists strangely, not wanting to leave Donghyuck despite knowing that he should probably flee the scene before something even worse happens –something about Donghyuck making him want to take a step closer, to stay by his side.

Mark spares another look at Donghyuck as he leaves, but it seems like Donghyuck is back to being frozen, smile having disappeared from his face.

Mark furrows his brows, wondering if he had imagined the confusion crossing Donghyuck’s face before his expression had turned unreadable.

Mark finds it difficult to focus on the other people Johnny introduces him to, an odd buzzing underneath his skin that makes him feel like something is wrong, like he is in the wrong place.

Jeno comes to join them not soon after, back from his trip to the bathroom, but even then, Mark feels restless for a reason he doesn’t understand, like his skin is itching.

Donghyuck’s face keeps flashing in his mind.

Mark goes to fetch more drinks in hopes that that will help, and when he returns he catches sight of Donghyuck from the other side of the room. He is surrounded by people Mark doesn’t know, but unlike the casual smile he had had when they’d first been introduced, his face is closed off and there is a tension to his shoulders that hadn’t been there before.

Donghyuck says something to the guy Mark thinks is called Jaemin and Jaemin frowns, glancing over to where Mark is standing and then turning back to Donghyuck with a clearly worried look on his face.

He asks Jaehyun, a person in Johnny’s group of friends that he’s met several times before, about it since Johnny has mysteriously disappeared again.

“That boy over there,” Mark begins, nodding in what he hopes is in a discrete way towards Donghyuck, “who is he?”

Jaehyun looks in the direction Mark had nodded towards.

“Oh, you mean Donghyuck?” Jaehyun turns to him with a knowing smile on his face. “He’s a music major, I think. As annoying as they come, but funny enough that I think probably half the student body has a crush on him.”

Mark isn’t surprised in the slightest that Donghyuck is popular when Donghyuck is surrounded by people despite looking like he’d rather be anywhere else, an almost troubled look on his face.

Mark turns away before he is caught staring, linking arms with Jeno who is looking a bit pink himself, but even then, there is something about Donghyuck that makes Mark want turn and look at him, like he’s sunshine on a particularly dark day.

The reason behind Jeno’s pink cheeks becomes obvious a short while later, when Mark realises that Jeno, in a twist of fate, had been sipping on what he thought was coke but what was really mostly rum. How the taste had eluded Jeno, Mark isn’t sure, but it means that Jeno is feeling drunk enough to be nauseous an hour into the party.

Mark, who is trying to keep Jeno from throwing up, decides that the best thing to do is to simply take him home, but finds himself searching for Donghyuck as he hauls a drunk Jeno out of the house.

Mark has just managed to push Jeno into a taxi when Jaemin trips out of the house in his haste to get to him, looking a bit alarmed.

“Wait!” Jaemin exclaims, and Mark freezes, turning to stare at him with wide eyes.

“Is something wrong?”

“You’re leaving?” Jaemin asks, sounding a bit out of breath.

Mark scratches the back of his neck, wondering if they had even spoken to each other before.

“Ah, yeah,” he explains. “Jeno doesn’t feel so good.”

Almost as if on cue, Jeno groans weakly from the backseat. The taxi driver glances at him nervously.

Jaemin sighs, looking over his shoulder for someone, and then swears under his breath.

“Ah whatever, this might sound strange, but your soulmark? What does it say?”

Mark wonders if Jaemin has also had a bit too much to drink, because asking strangers about their soulmark is something that sober people don’t really tend to do.

The distress to his voice makes Mark respond nonetheless.

“It says ’excuse me’,” Mark answers, and Jaemin’s face does something strange.

“Ah…okay. Never mind then. Have a nice evening.”

And then he leaves, and Mark is left even more puzzled.

He spends the rest of his evening taking care of Jeno, patting his back as he groans weakly against the toilet seat, but when he finally lays down, his phone letting him know that it’s already half past one in the morning, he feels wide awake, unable to get Donghyuck’s bright smile out of his mind.

* * *

Mark tries to put his odd encounter with Donghyuck out of his mind, knowing that it will be no good to nurture a crush on someone he must have ended up accidentally annoying, but finds it impossible to do so.

Mark hadn’t heard of Donghyuck before meeting him at the party, but after being introduced to him, Mark feels like he hears about him almost everywhere he goes. A few people sitting behind him in class say that they think he might be coming down with something since he had left the party early that Saturday, and another person says that he had been oddly quiet during their morning seminar, not joking with his friends like he usually did.

It makes Mark feel oddly worried, but also a bit relieved that he hadn’t been the one to ruin Donghyuck’s night, but probably a regular cold.

When he leaves his class and heads to the cafeteria to meet Lucas he figures that he probably won’t hear any other people talking about Donghyuck, the campus being large enough that Mark doubts that he will ever recognize most of the students, but finds Donghyuck there as well, sitting around a small table with a guy Mark thinks is called Taeil.

Donghyuck is wearing a pink hoodie, hair unstyled and falling messily just short of his eyes, and Mark feels his heart stutter in his chest at the unguarded expression on his face. He looks sleepy, softer without the eyeliner, and the dark circles vividly present beneath his eyes lets Mark knows that he probably hasn’t slept well.

Donghyuck is in the middle of stretching an arm out towards Taeil when Lucas stands up from the other side of the cafeteria, grin wide on his face.

“Mark! Here!”

It’s only because Mark is already looking at Donghyuck that he notices the way Donghyuck’s arm stops, suspended in the middle of the air for a few seconds before Donghyuck pulls it back, previous sleepy expression on his face disappearing.

Mark walks over to Lucas, trying his best not to trip over his own feet, and wonders if he is imagining the gaze he feels on him as he does.

“I heard you got the 8 am Chinese class.” Lucas’s voice booms out over the large room. “That’s rough, man.”

Mark grins.

“Well, at least 8 am Chinese beats 8 am arithmetic,” Mark says, but still winces at the thought of having to get up that early in the morning twice a week. With his packed schedule, he didn’t have that much to choose from when it came to elective courses, all the other interesting classes clashing with the rest of his schedule. “At least I know how to count to five in Chinese now.”

“That’s sick, dude.”

Mark laughs at Lucas’s enthusiasm and finds himself partially side-tracked.

Lucas’s boyfriend Ten comes to join them, and after lunch Mark spends the rest of the day studying. He is in bed by 11 pm, which is earlier than he normally is when he is usually up to his neck in homework and trying to squeeze in basketball practice or hang out sessions with Jeno.

He feels barely awake when he gets to his class and still feels like he is dreaming when he spots Donghyuck, pretty sure that Donghyuck hadn’t been in his Chinese class two days ago.

“Um, hi.” He blurts out, and then regrets his outburst instantly. They’d only met once before and had had a conversation that had lasted only a few minutes. Donghyuck probably doesn’t want his morning disturbed by Mark’s general ramblings. “I didn’t know you took Chinese.”

Donghyuck blinks, and there something a little bit tense about him, something that would have given Mark the impression that he was bit nervous if he hadn’t known better.

“I just transferred from English. Figured Chinese would be more fun.”

Mark is surprised, English generally being more popular and at a much better time, but shrugs.

“Oh, cool.” He says, and then wants to facepalm. “I mean, it’s your future, so it’s not _cool_ cool, it’s just—I—never mind.”

Donghyuck stares at him for a few seconds, and then he snorts out a laugh and seems to relax somewhat. There is still something a bit off about how he acts around Mark, but his eyes have softened and he looks like he is going to respond when the teacher clears his voice, about to start his lecture.

Donghyuck settles down next to him, and from the lack of textbooks in front of him, Mark figures that his transfer from English to Chinese had been a spontaneous one. The only thing he has with him is a notebook and a pen, but rather than spending time jotting down what the teacher is saying he seems to mostly doodle in it.

When the teacher tells them to practice reading the different phrases in the text book Donghyuck obviously doesn’t have, Mark turns to him with a question on his face.

“Want to pair up?”

“Sure.”

Mark feels painfully aware of Donghyuck as he scoots his chair closer, moving close enough that Mark can smell a hint of cologne and see that the back of his hair is damp from a morning shower.

Donghyuck reads through the sentences they are supposed to go through and looks a bit amused, lips heart-shaped when he smiles.

“Well, these sentences will definitely come in handy if I ever travel to China,” Donghyuck says pleasantly, pulling Mark out of his musings about Donghyuck’s lips. “We haven’t learned how to introduce ourselves in Chinese yet but at least we will know how to ask strangers for detailed instructions about where to find the Chinese wall.”

Mark lets out a surprised laugh, and then tries to pass it off as a cough when the teacher looks their way.

“Well, to be fair our professor doesn’t look like he’s the type to use google that often,” Mark responds, smile on his face.

“I doubt he even knows what google is.”

They read through the sentences, and though Mark is still a bit confused by Donghyuck, not entirely sure if he’s read too much into their interaction at the party and at the cafeteria, he finds that he understands why Jaehyun had said that he was liked by people all over their campus.

It’s an 8 am class, and Mark is tired enough that he feels like he can fall asleep if he closes his eyes for a little too long, but even so Donghyuck somehow manages to make the class entertaining, throwing in witty comments here and there and making Mark laugh.

Mark finds himself surprised by how comfortable he feels around Donghyuck, like they have known each other for longer than just a few days, and it catches Mark off guard since he had even felt a bit awkward around Lucas in the beginning.

With Donghyuck it just feels like he’s had too much caffeine, too much sugar, the same strange buzzing underneath his skin that had been present at the party. It makes him hyperaware of Donghyuck’s every move, how much distance there is between them and what he is doing, but even so, there is nothing uncomfortable about it.

The class ends faster than Mark wants it to, and Mark figures that the semi-friendship the two of them have formed will end with it, but Donghyuck waits for him to gather his things with his backpack slung casually over his shoulder.

Jaemin is waiting for them when they exit the classroom, leaning against the wall with his phone in his hands.

“What are you doing here?” Donghyuck asks, and Jaemin smiles innocently back at them, eyes coming to rest on Mark briefly.

“Got curious, I guess.”

Donghyuck drags Jaemin away before he has the chance to say anything else, and Mark is once again left feeling like he has missed something.

He thinks about Donghyuck even as he meets up with Jeno over coffee, Jeno looking at him with obvious interest on his face when he sits down next to him.

“Did something good happen?” Jeno asks, removing one of his earphones.

“Huh? No, why?”

“I don’t know. You look…happy? I guess?” Jeno says, smiling. “Even more so than usual.”

Mark hums, sipping his mocha Frappuccino.

“I guess I’m just in a good mood,” he answers, and finds that to be true.

When Wednesday night rolls around, he finds himself oddly anticipating his morning class, despite knowing that sitting next to Donghyuck might just have been a one-time thing.

He finds himself having to fight a smile when Donghyuck walks into the classroom 2 minutes to 8, the last student to arrive, and pulls out the chair next to him.

“Quick, let me copy your homework.”

“I’m starting to suspect that you only sit next to me because you want to steal my things,” Mark says, but passes his homework over nonetheless.

“You’re blessed with my lovely personality so I’d say we’re even,” Donghyuck responds, not even looking up from transferring notes, and Mark shakes his head in amused exasperation but secretly thinks that Donghyuck might be right.

Donghyuck is unlike any other people Mark has ever met, having an almost dynamic personality. He has no problems teasing Mark when it’s just the two of them, but when the teacher chastises Mark for his pronunciation he looks more offended than when the teacher berates him for the exact same thing five seconds later.

They have entirely different personalities, and Mark feels like Donghyuck will stop talking to him once he will realise that Mark is clearly not as cool as he’d thought, but that moment never comes. Instead he only shakes his head, calling Mark a dumbass when Mark somehow manages to trip over literal air while they are enjoying their ten-minute break before the second half of the class begins.

“What are you doing this weekend?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark has to scour his brain to come up with something other than studying, sure that Donghyuck already has a million plans.

“I don’t know,” Mark finally answers. “I was thinking of maybe going to see a movie with Jeno but he has an essay due Monday so I don’t think he’ll be game.”

Donghyuck gets a strange look on his face.

“Is Jeno your soulmate?” He asks casually, but there is a something off about his voice that makes Mark believe that he isn’t as nonchalant as wants to let on.

“Oh, God no.” Mark makes a face. “We’re just friends.”

Mark wonders why he is the one who feels relief when the smile returns to Donghyuck’s face.

* * *

Mark has almost forgotten about his plan to go to the movies when his phone buzzes Saturday afternoon and he sees that he’s received a series of texts.

**15:34**

> **• From unknown number:** hey, u still feel like going to the movies? my plans got cancelled  
**• From unknown number:** this is donghyuck btw

Mark stares at his phone in surprise, feeling his heart pick up in pace, and wonders how Donghyuck got his number.

> **• To Donghyuck:** sure! haha  
**• To Donghyuck:** it’ll just be the two of us though jeno is busy

They meet at the cinema closest to the campus, which is a cinema as shabby as they come but serves the best popcorn that Mark has ever tasted. Donghyuck waits for him next to the ticket booth, looking effortlessly handsome in jeans and a white t-shirt.

Mark swallows, throat suddenly dry, and walks over to where Donghyuck is standing.

Donghyuck looks him up and down and hums, before stretching out his arm and offering him a huge box of popcorn.

“I accidentally bought too much,” he explains. “Consider it payback for the homework, I guess. Past and future.”

Mark snorts, thinking about how Donghyuck had said that his personality was payment enough, but takes the popcorn either way.

There aren’t many other people in the movie theatre, but the few that are there are all couples, and although Mark knows that Donghyuck had only invited him to the movies because his plans had cancelled on him, it makes his ears turn red.

Their arms brush when they sit down and when the lights dim and the theatre goes dark, Mark feels even more conscious of Donghyuck’s presence than he normally is, the odd buzz returning to his body.

He tries his best to ignore it by focusing on the movie, snacking on the popcorn that Donghyuck has placed between the two of them, but feels his attention side-tracked when he reaches for popcorn and instead accidentally touches Donghyuck’s hand.

For the short moment it lasts Donghyuck’s hand feels both warm and soft against his own, but then Mark shifts his fingers before it gets a chance to turn weird and cuts off the contact. When the movie ends an hour or so later, his fingers still tingle, and continues to do so as they exit the theatre, Mark throwing the empty box of popcorn into the trash.

The watch on his arm lets him know that it’s still pretty early in the evening, and Mark discovers that he doesn’t want to go home just yet, wanting to be around Donghyuck for a bit longer.

There is an ice-cream parlour next to the cinema, and when Mark suggest going there to buy ice-cream Donghyuck agrees easily, only seeming to regret his decision when Mark has gotten his two scoops and goes to join Donghyuck on the bench outside.

“Vanilla and cookies and cream? Really?” Donghyuck says, looking disgusted. “What are you, five?”

“Big words from someone who likes rum raisin,” Mark retorts. “As if that isn’t proof that you clearly need Jesus in your life.”

Donghyuck tries to smear ice-cream on Mark’s cheeks in revenge, and although Mark suspects that Donghyuck isn’t serious about it, he isn’t taking any chances when Donghyuck looks like he takes more pleasure in the panicked sounds Mark’s tries to muffle than in his own ice-cream.

Donghyuck only stops his attack when someone calls out his name, the voice belonging to a boy who looks a bit older than the two of them, his bright red hair and piercings making him look like he just came straight out of a pictorial.

“And here I thought the reason you weren’t coming to Taeyong’s was because you had a stomach ache,” The boy says, a Cheshire-cat grin on his face.

“It got better,” Donghyuck answers, sending him a loaded look. The two of them stare at each other for a few seconds before the boy drops the subject, turning to Mark.

“Hi, I’m Yuta, nice to meet you.”

Mark gives him an awkward smile but doesn’t have a chance to introduce himself.

“Weren’t you headed somewhere?” Donghyuck cuts in, making Yuta grin even wider. For a second Mark almost thinks that he is going to sit down next to them but then he seems to shrug, sending Donghyuck a look that it’s quite as sharp.

“Well, I guess someone will miss me soon enough.” He turns to Mark. “See you around.”

And then he leaves just as easily as he’d arrived, and Mark turns to Donghyuck with a worried frown on his face, eyeing his ice-cream.

“Should you really be eating ice-cream if your stomach hurts?”

To his surprise Donghyuck colours, not meeting his gaze.

“Ah, well, it got better.” Seeming to recover he adds, “Although if you offer me your vanilla ice-cream I might just have to decline.”

Mark, feeling oddly childish, sticks his tongue out but can’t really stop his responding laugh.

* * *

Their friendship develops for the next week, and although Mark still hates getting up at an unreasonable hour twice a week, he finds that he looks forward to his Chinese classes more than he does anything else, the knowledge that he is going to meet Donghyuck making him wake up with a smile on his face rather than a groan.

He takes to texting Donghyuck between classes as well, the idea of only talking to Donghyuck twice a week making his stomach turn unhappily. They haven’t hung out outside of class since they’d gone to the movies together, but as Thursday comes around, and they’re making use of their ten-minute break to buy drinks from the outdoor vending-machine, Donghyuck turns to him with an inquisitive look on his face.

“Are you going to Doyoung’s party tonight?”

The name rings a bell, but Mark can’t place a face with it.

“Um, no, I don’t think I’m invited.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes.

“You don’t need an invitation, you’re Johnny’s cousin and my…” Something crosses Donghyuck’s expression, gone too soon for Mark to catch it, “friend.”

“I guess,” Mark says, and shivers as a gust of cold wind ruffles his hair. He had opted for a t-shirt and left his jacket at home, not wanting to accept that the summer was over just yet, but finds himself wishing that he’d chosen to wear something a little bit warmer.

He crosses his arms, hoping to save some warmth, and watches as Donghyuck focuses on his wrist that had been exposed at the action, focuses on his soulmark.

Mark flushes despite knowing that he doesn’t really have a reason to, feeling oddly exposed. His soulmark isn’t as hidden from the world as most people’s are, right in the middle of his left wrist, but there is something about Donghyuck seeing his soulmark that feels kind of intimate, that makes Mark wish that he hadn’t crossed his arms in the first place.

For the first time since they’ve met, Mark finds himself wondering what Donghyuck’s soulmark says, and feels his stomach unexplainably sink at the thought of Donghyuck having someone else walk around with a correspondent tattoo on their body.

Donghyuck’s soulmate has to be someone amazing.

It makes Mark feel oddly depressed.

He looks up from his soulmark and expects to see a teasing smile on Donghyuck’s face, for Donghyuck to tell him that it really is no wonder that his soulmate will think that he’s a nuisance as well, but instead Donghyuck looks almost pale, entire face closed off.

“We should probably head inside,” Donghyuck says, the happy state he had been in earlier that morning seeming to have disappeared.

He remains strangely quiet for the rest of the class, and Mark finds himself wanting to reach out, to throw his arm around his shoulders and cheer him up, but figures that that would come across as a bit weird.

Donghyuck leaves class without making his usual jokes, without lingering, and something in Mark itches, making him want to see Donghyuck, to make sure that he’s okay. He finds himself texting Johnny at 9 pm, asking him if he’s at Doyoung’s party and how to get there.

Johnny meets him outside, grin wide on his face.

“Mark Lee attending a party without me having to force him? I never thought I’d see the day!”

“Oh, ha ha,” says Mark. ”Have you seen Donghyuck?”

Johnny looks at him with barely concealed interest.

“I think I saw him outside by the pool, but that was a while ago. He looked pretty drunk.”

Mark frowns, but it doesn’t take him too long to find Donghyuck.

He’s sitting on the porch, talking intimately with some guy Mark has never seen before, and Mark feels jealousy flare up inside of him for a few seconds before all he feels is foolish.

He and Donghyuck share a class together and they’ve been to the cinema, but they aren’t close friends, and there is nothing that alludes to the fact that Donghyuck feels the same way about Mark that Mark feels about Donghyuck. Donghyuck would probably only be annoyed if he barged in on his conversation, having a million other friends to make him laugh, not to mention a soulmate that _wasn’t_ him.

It strikes Mark that he doesn’t even know if Donghyuck has a boyfriend or a girlfriend.

He doesn’t think he does, because Donghyuck had never mentioned having one, but it’s not impossible, not with how little he actually knows about Donghyuck.

He turns away before Donghyuck can spot him, and wonders if he should just leave.

He makes it half way out the door before Yuta spots him, calling him over.

“Hey, ice-cream boy! Are you here with Donghyuck?”

Mark flushes.

“No. You don’t have to tell him I was here,” he says, and then realises that Yuta might actually be able to answer one of his questions.

“Actually, can I ask you something?”

“Depends on what it is,” Yuta says.

“Does Donghyuck have a boyfriend?”

Yuta snorts.

“Donghyuck? No, never. He’s ridiculously romantic, he would never date anyone that wasn’t his soulmate.”

“Oh.”

For some reason that makes Mark feel even worse, and that in turn makes him feel even more worse because Mark shouldn’t care about who someone who isn’t his soulmate wants to date. Donghyuck has someone else’s words on his skin, as does Mark, but even so, the idea of Donghyuck outright refusing to date anyone other than his soulmate makes Mark’s stomach curl in on itself.

Mark wonders what his problem is, never having grown so attached to another human being in such a short period of time before.

Some of his inner turmoil must be reflected on his face because Yuta offers him the cup he is holding, and although Mark has a terrible alcohol tolerance and doesn’t even like drinking that much, he figures that people must turn to drinking when they are sad for a reason and downs the entire cup.

With some alcohol in his body, Mark figures that he might as well stick around for a little while longer only so that Johnny won’t tease him too much, and feels his spirits lift slightly when catches Lucas’ eyes from across the living room, his welcoming shout being loud enough to attract the attention of the entire party.

“Yo, Mark! Have some beer, man!”

To Mark’s surprise Donghyuck enters the living room shortly thereafter, eyes searching the room for something, but stops when he spots Mark, face doing something complicated that Mark doesn’t understand. There is a flush on his cheeks, and Mark wonders if he’s drunk, thinking that he looks like summer incarnate even more than usual.

Mark feels like someone has punched his heart when Donghyuck walks over to him, but in a good type of way.

“I thought I heard your name,” he says, looking a little less guarded than normal, and Mark feels himself fall, ignoring the warning bells that ring in his mind.

* * *

They end up sitting in one of the many bathrooms, leaning against the bathtub where it’s a little bit quieter. Mark lets his head fall against Donghyuck’s shoulder, soaking in his warmth.

Donghyuck smells like clean sheets and the cologne that he uses, and the combination is addicting, making Mark want to lean even closer and breathe him in even more. Donghyuck is just as clingy back, hands coming to play with Mark’s fingers, folding them and brushing over knuckles. His hands are gentle, and all the negative feelings that Mark had felt earlier that night disappears, replaced by content, a feeling that being close to Donghyuck like this is right.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” Donghyuck says.

“It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision.” Mark thinks about the boy he had been sitting with on the porch. “Plus, you have your other friends.”

“Sometimes I really wish I didn’t,” Donghyuck mutters, “If I have to listen to Renjun talking about how much he misses his soulmate for another second he might just mysteriously go missing. The only blessing was the he was so drunk that he forgot that I don’t speak Chinese.”

Mark relaxes, the tangle of jealousy in his stomach disappearing.

“That’s not entirely true,” Mark counters. “You know how to ask him about the Chinese wall.”

Donghyuck laughs softly, and Mark feels warmth bloom in his chest.

“Still, it must be nice to have that sort of connection with your soulmate,” Mark continues, thinking about how his own soulmark takes up less and less of his thoughts, how he kind of wants to forget that his soulmark even exists.

Mark feels Donghyuck tense against him, and then he lets out a shuddering breath, suddenly seeming exhausted.

“Yeah,” is all Donghyuck says, and things are quiet between the two of them, the only sound being the distant noise of the party that continues downstairs. Mark almost thinks that Donghyuck has fallen asleep when he speaks again.

“I used to write letters to my soulmate,” Donghyuck says quietly, and sounds so unlike his usual cheerful, confident self that it makes Mark frown. “I wrote about how my day had gone, how I wanted to meet them soon, the things I wanted to show them, the places I wanted us to go. They’re still in a box at my parents’ house, although I guess they’re completely useless now.”

Mark furrows his brows, ignoring the stab of pain he feels at the mention of Donghyuck’s soulmate.

“Why are they useless?”

“Because I’ve already met my soulmate,” Donghyuck replies. “And I’m not theirs.”

Mark jerks to the side and accidentally knocks the cup standing between the two of them over, beer spilling all over the floor. The moment breaks with it, and Mark feels any chance of asking Donghyuck more questions about his soulmate slip through his fingers.

His head is spinning, and Mark isn’t entirely sure it’s because of the alcohol.

“We should probably go to bed,” Donghyuck says when they’ve done the best job at cleaning up the mess that can be expected of two drunk students well past midnight, and Mark agrees despite feeling more awake than ever.

Donghyuck digs out an air mattress that he finds in a cabinet, more familiar with Doyoung’s house than Mark is, and Mark falls asleep next to Donghyuck, waking up in the morning to sunlight shining in through drawn curtains and legs entangled with Donghyuck’s.

Donghyuck is still asleep, body angled towards Mark, and Mark takes advantage of the moment to allow his gaze to wander over Donghyuck’s face without having to worry about getting caught.

He takes in the slope of Donhyuck’s neck, his full lips, and lets his eyes ghost over his eyes, the skin darker around his eyelids. The morning light makes his skin look almost golden, glowing, and Mark thinks that he looks like some creature straight out of mythology, the deity to pray to if you wanted to be blessed by warmth.

Mark has to look away, to snap himself out of it, and goes to throw on the sweater he had taken off during the night, taking out the phone that he had put in its sleeve.

When he looks back Donghyuck is awake, glaring at him weakly.

“God, of course you’re a fucking morning person,” he groans, sounding as if he can’t believe his own luck.

Mark glances at his phone.

“It’s almost eleven.”

Donghyuck glares at him even harder, but rolls his shoulders and sits up, grabbing the cap that he had been wearing the night before and putting it on, effectively covering his bedhead.

“Ugh, whatever. Let’s go eat breakfast, I’m starving.”

Mark doesn’t head home until much later, not until he knows that he won’t be able to put off doing the homework he had neglected in order to spontaneously crash a party and then sleep most of the day away.

Monday comes like it always does, but instead of passing by unnoticed, lost to routine, Jeno calls him around lunchtime, words stopping him dead in his tracks.

“I found my soulmate.”

Mark gets to Jeno in under ten minutes and finds Jeno sitting around a table with both Donghyuck and Jaemin. For a moment he feels confused, wondering where Jeno’s soulmate is and if he had misinterpreted Jeno’s words.

As if picking up on his presence, Donghyuck turns his head and spots him by the entrance, perking up and making room for him to sit next to him.

It’s only a few minutes later that he understands that Jeno’s soulmate hadn’t left, in an odd twist of fate turning out to be Jaemin. Mark stares at them in surprise, having thought that the two of them had spoken before, but then realises that despite Jeno and Jaemin having been in the same room before, they had never actually spoken to each other.

Jeno had been in the bathroom when Johnny had introduced him to Donghyuck and Jaemin, and they had never as much as glanced at each other when Jeno had been five seconds away from throwing up in the backseat of a taxi.

Jeno and Jaemin had instead realised that they were soulmates after dance class, when Jeno had been in the middle of getting dressed after taking a shower, still shirtless, and Jaemin had barged in and towel snapped him, thinking that he was another dancer called Jisung.

It is weird to see the two of them together, because while they are technically strangers, only having known each other for a few hours, there is something familiar, almost intuitive, about how the two of them interact that makes Mark think of Donghyuck.

Mark thinks about his own soulmark, about Donghyuck’s, about how Yuta had said that Donghyuck would never date someone that wasn’t his soulmate and feels a little bit nauseous.

Mark thinks that Donghyuck must have gotten it wrong somehow, because there is no way someone could be around Donghyuck and not fall in love with him.

Mark wishes that he didn’t have the words ’excuse me’ written out on his wrist, and then feels miserable, because the universe had clearly messed up if Mark couldn’t even manage to find any sort of desire to be with the person he was meant to be with ever since meeting Donghyuck.

Donghyuck seems to sense his sudden anxiety because he presses his arm against Mark’s own, and although Mark thinks that that should probably make him even more stressed, it calms him down, makes him melt against Donghyuck.

Donghyuck drags Jaemin away shortly thereafter, telling them that he needs to talk to his friend in private, and leaves Jeno and Mark alone.

Jeno looks at him like he is trying to figure something out.

“Are you and Donghyuck dating?”

Mark swallows, shaking his head.

“No, we’re just friends. He won’t date someone who isn’t his soulmate and I doubt he would be interested even if he did.”

Jeno frowns, eyebrows furrowed like something isn’t adding up.

“I…really doubt that.”

And despite knowing that Jeno is wrong, it doesn’t stop Mark from wishing that it was true.

* * *

Less than a week later, when Jeno and Jaemin seem to have grown attached at the hip, Mark learns that Donghyuck and Jaemin are two different sides of the same coin. Jaemin seems to hate routine to an extent that even rivals Donghyuck, having an almost chaotic, flirty energy to him that comes as a large contrast to Jeno and his normal calm.

Despite Jeno and Jaemin having very different personalities they seem to balance each other out, and although Mark is sad that Jeno will probably have less time to spare for him, Mark can’t bring himself to feel anything other than happy when he sees how frequently Jeno has been smiling lately.

There is the added benefit of Mark getting to see Donghyuck more frequently with Jaemin around so often as well, although Mark isn’t quite as happy when Jeno tells him that Jaemin is coming over and throws him out of their shared dorm.

With no other plans, Mark texts Donghyuck and asks if he wants to hang out, heart racing in his chest when he simply receives Donghyuck’s address in response.

There is something very Donghyuck about Donghyuck’s room, Mark decides. The wall is covered in posters and photos, and there is an electric piano taking up space on his desk, a leather jacket thrown over the accompanying chair.

His room isn’t untidy, but it looks lived in, cosy, and Mark likes it.

They settle on Donghyuck’s bed, leaning against the headboard, watching a movie on Donghyuck’s computer. Donghyuck leans his head on Mark’s shoulders, focused on the movie that Mark had stopped trying to follow a long time ago, and when Mark reaches out to brush hair out of Donghyuck’s face Donghyuck leans into the touch, nearly making Mark have a heart attack.

It feels domestic, heartbreakingly nice, and they stay curled up against each other even when the movie has ended, Mark feeling more comfortable than he remembers being in a long period of time.

It’s only because he’s feeling so comfortable, the lights dim around them, that Mark musters up the courage to ask Donghyuck about what he had meant at the party, even if he knows that talking about Donghyuck’s soulmate will only hurt him.

“Why do you think that your soulmate doesn’t feel the same way about you?”

It takes a moment for Donghyuck to answer, and for a moment Mark thinks that he is going to ignore his question. Mark can’t see Donghyuck’s expression, but he can see a hint of an almost humourless smile on his face, like he finds it funny that Mark is asking the question.

“I don’t know, what do you think?” Donghyuck asks, and Mark sighs.

“Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck fiddles with the straps of Mark’s hoodie.

“He doesn’t have my words on him.”

“Oh.”

A wave of bitterness washes over him then, because if there is someone in the world who deserves to have a soulmate that loves them back, to be showered with love, it is Donghyuck.

To Mark’s surprise Donghyuck isn’t finished, continuing.

“I said my words but he didn’t react, only looked a bit confused, and then I learned that he didn’t have them at all.”

A heavy weight presses down on Mark’s chest, making it difficult for him to breathe.

“I used to worry about that,” Mark says, and feels himself focusing on the word used, his soulmark having lost importance since he’d met Donghyuck. “I get told excuse me so many times a day that I don’t even register it most of the time. Even you did, the first time we met.”

A second passes and then Donghyuck registers his words, snapping his head up, staring at Mark with wide eyes like he’d just told him something ridiculous.

“What? I—When did I—? I didn’t say ’excuse me’ to you. I talked about my hair being like ketchup.”

Mark shakes his head, although Donghyuck isn’t fully wrong.

“I mean you did, but we bumped into each other in the kitchen before that. You said excuse me, and I shuffled out of the way. Those were your first words to me.”

Donghyuck stares at him with wide eyes, a million different emotions crossing his face, disbelief to doubt to something that almost looks hopeful, something that almost looks desperate.

“Your soulmark…Mark, you…”

To Mark’s increasing bewilderment, Donghyuck stands up from the bed, beginning to remove his shirt. Mark opens his mouth to say something, to let out a pathetic high-pitched noise and ask him what he is doing, but there is something about Donghyuck that makes him stop.

“Do you remember what you said to me the first time we met?”

Mark finds it’s difficult to focus on their first meeting with a shirtless Donghyuck in front of him.

“I think I said something about my hair not being that bad?”

Donghyuck turns, and there on his right shoulder-blade, hidden beneath the shirts he usually wears, covered by layers of clothes, are the words ’_it never looked like ramen, it was just a hair-dye experiment gone wrong_’.

Mark feels all the air in his lungs swoosh out, feels the world spinning beneath him, the one source of clarity being Donghyuck who is looking back at him like he can’t bring himself to look away.

“Those are my words.” Mark chokes out, and Donghyuck, who would usually make fun of him for saying something so obvious, only grabs on to his wrist.

“And those are mine.”

Donghyuck’s voice sounds uneven, raw, and Mark feels like he is dreaming, like he will wake up at any moment, but when he doesn’t he feels himself overwhelmed with love, scaring in its intensity. His eyes are drawn to Donghyuck’s shoulder blade, and when he reaches out to touch it, Donghyuck’s trembles, warm and firm, his own personal sun.

His soulmate.

Mark lets out a shuddering breath, one second just staring at Donghyuck, all words evading him, and the next second they’re kissing, Donghyuck’s hands buried in his hair, Mark’s fingers resting on his bare skin. Donghyuck’s muscles contract under his touch, and Mark pulls him closer, wanting to eliminate any remaining space between the two of them.

Donghyuck sprawls on top of him, one of Donghyuck’s hands sneaking under his hoodie, and Mark moans, feeling like his nerve-endings are on fire.

Kissing Donghyuck is like coming home and losing himself all at once, a sense of contentment washing over him like this is what they should have been doing all along, but also like he could easily drown, drown in the feeling of Donghyuck’s lips against his,in the feeling of Donghyuck’s tongue in his mouth.

Mark wants to kiss Donghyuck forever, and in the one fragment of his mind that is still able to form thoughts, he realises that there is nothing stopping him from doing just that.

* * *

It’s much later when all the things Donghyuck said catches up.

“You knew I was your soulmate all along?”

They’re cuddling in bed, one of Donghyuck’s legs thrown over Mark’s while Mark lets his hand stroke up and down Donghyuck’s back, taking comfort in his mere presence. It feels too early to stop touching, to extract themselves from one another, although Mark knows that they will have to sooner or later.

“Yeah,” Donghyuck’s says. “I thought we exchanged out first words when Johnny introduced you. I thought you had someone else’s words on you, some other person who was your soulmate.”

Mark remembers Donghyuck looking at him like he’d won the lottery, and the confusion that had crossed his face when Mark was dragged away by Johnny to say hello to the rest of his friends.

A sad frown tugs at Mark’s lips, and once again he finds himself disliking his soulmark, but this time due to the fact that it had hurt Donghyuck.

“But you still befriended me,” Mark says quietly. “Why would you do that if you thought I was going to fall in love with someone else?”

“Because you were my soulmate.”

Donghyuck says it as if that was answer enough.

“I had to know what you were like. I told myself that I wasn’t going to get attached, but you were cute, and kind of dumb, and laughed at all my jokes, and I wanted to keep being around you, even if Taeil said that I was only going to hurt myself, that you might not feel the same way about me.”

“But I do.” Mark says and lifts his head, curls his arms around Donghyuck. “I do feel the same way about you.”

Mark presses his lips against Donghyuck’s, feels the way Donghyuck responds eagerly to it, the way he smiles into the kiss, and Mark feels his throat close up, can hear his own heart beat in his ears, and realises that he’d probably had too little faith in the universe.

If Donghyuck is his soulmate, than the universe definitely knows what it is doing.

**Author's Note:**

> if u enjoyed the story pls let me know!
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/donkimaki)


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